Author: lilydarais

On Thursday I finished writing our first Christmas letter in ten years. !!!

I sent it to every friend and/or family member I could find in my email account. But I’m sure I missed some, which makes me sad. I have loved getting responses and feeling like I am in touch with dear people from different stages of life. It’s been so connective and wonderful. I not even wait ten years to do the next one.

Anyway, here it is, even though the formatting is wonky because it didn’t translate well into the blog and I am not taking time to fix it.

Hello Family and Friends!
We haven’t sent out holiday cards in a decade, and this year looks like it might have the same cardless ending as years past. To avert that dismal prospect, we are taking a cue from some of our favorite greeting senders and going the paperless route this year. This is mostly a matter of convenience for us. You get updates and a picture (from last year), we might get a few exciting replies, and we get to check holiday greetings off of our to-do list for the first time in ten years.
Check!
Kids
Our most favorite people! Lydia: 10; Mary: 9; Ammon: 6; Clarissa: 4. We are grateful that they are all deeply kind individuals. Even though the noise level and chaos leave us ragged, we cherish each day we have with them. If you know them, you love them too.
2021 ReviewJanuary: LOTS of ice fishing, karaoke and board games at home. Abe enjoyed skiing with friends.February: Canyonland National Park, Arches National Park, Dead Horse Point State Park. Mary and Lydia learned to ski. We all snowshoed. Abe learned to cross country ski (thank you Daniel Olson!). Lily took an online course from Richard Rohr. We also flew kites on the salt flats. Oh, and we got a dog. His name is Basil and his favorite food is pizza.March:Kanab, Best Friends Animal Sanctuary, Coral Sand Dunes State Park.  Got our first round of shots. Basil graduated from puppy school. Ammon and Mary both learned to ride bikes without training wheels. Baked an olive oil cake to honor Meghan Markle. Lots of karaoke. Leprechauns peed in our toilets again.April: Dead Horse Point State Park and Canyonlands again! Capitol Reef National Park, Goblin Valley State Park. Got completely vaccinated. Easter week visit from Clark, Swathi, Soren and Meera. The Easter Bunny went nuts in our yard and house. With the help of Jen, Courtney, Matt and Chris we escaped an Egyption tomb. Abe also biked Slickrock and pulled our van out of the mud with his friend, Liem.  May: Denver, Colorado Springs, Phoenix. Abe’s grandfather passed away, and so we spent time in Denver with Karin, Jere and extended family. While there we took side trips to the Garden of the Gods and the unsinkable Molly Brown’s house. Loved her wallpaper.This month included lots of kite flying and kite mishaps. Thanks to Matt and Eli for helping rescue our kite! Abe and Lily also pretended to be retirees for one weekend in Phoenix. June: Bear Lake, camping in South Fork, Las Vegas. Girls trip to Vegas, Darais Family Olympic Games (organized for the second year in a row by Lydia), and a week-long visit from our dear friend, Jean. Abe and our neighbor friend,Todd, also took our kids camping in South Fork Canyon. Hiked Silver Lake in the Alpine Loop as a family. Orem Summer Days with Eli. Mini-Golf with the Vandagriffs.
Activities: Ice skating lessons, soccer (Abe coached!), volleyball, ballet, over thirty swim lessons, ballroom dance camp, harp lessons, piano lessons and extra math lessons. We got up at the crack of dawn to hike the Y half a dozen times with the kids. Abe took Mary to a Jazz game. Oh, and we sold our old house. Thanks, Moroni for fixing it up! And thanks, Tom, for selling it!
July: Glacier National Park, Goblin Valley and Florida. We joinedClark, Swathi, Soren, Meera, Sruthi and Mani in Glacier National Park. Highlights included seeing a grizzly on Going-to-the-Sun Road, hiking the magical Avalanche Lake Trail, and swimming in glacial Lake MacDonald. 
We also adored our hothothot Goblin Valley trip with Baps and Bapa!
In Florida we rode an airboat through the Everglades, saw dolphins and Hemingway’s house in the Keys, explored Miami, and went to four theme parks. We also contracted Delta.
August: Covid. We lost almost the whole month to quarantines. When we were out of quarantine we fit in a Uintas hiking/fishing day. En route we drove through multiple herds of sheep.
September: Kolob Canyon, Chicago. We backpacked as a family in Kolob Canyon and fell in love with that trail. (We did not fall in love with wag bags.) 
Mary, Lily, and Lydia had the best weekend ever in Chicago!! 
Mary also slayed it at the Encore piano competition where she took third place. We also saw The Secret Garden at the Sandy Hale Theater and snuck out on tennis dates. The kids enrolled in music lessons, ballet, tumbling, tennis, ballroom dance, and singing lessons. 
October: North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee, and Greece. We spent the whole month traveling and saw too much to list. Ammon’s kindergarten teacher did not approve. 
We also saw Wicked for Ammon’s birthday. 
We managed to trick-or-treat in Salt Lake the day after we flew home. Our girls were all cacti and Ammon was a cowboy. 
November: Stayed put. Attended mediation to appease Ammon’s kindergarten teacher.
Saw Hunchback at the Orem Hale, Frozen at the Eccles, and Pink Martini at Abravanel. Loved them all. 
We also had our second annual Harry Potter Feast!  Apart from the feast, we’ve eaten a LOT of meals with loved ones. Our pants feel suspiciously snug.Clarissa started harp lessons. And, thanks to Clark and Swathi, Abe and Lily discovered their newest love, the float spa. Come float with us!
December: We are scared of it. But we are looking forward to visiting Clark, Swathi, Soren and Meera in Tacoma. We hope you ping us back and let us know when we can get together another month!

2021 Audiobooks we are dying to share

• Redwall by Brian Jacques
• Sum: Forty Tales of the Afterlives by David Eagleman
• Norse Mythology by Neil Gaiman
• Mythos by Stephen Fry
• Troy by Stephen Fry
• Greenlights  by Matthew McConaughey
• Second Nature by Michael Pollan

2021 books we adored*

• The Lincoln Highway by Amor Towles
• In Other Words by Jhumpa Lahiri
• The House of Mirth by Edith Wharton (Thanks, Amy!)
• An Altar in the World by Barbara Brown Taylor
• How to do Nothing by Jenny O’Dell (Cheat from 2020–but Lily thinks about this one all the time)
• Braiding Sweetgrass by Robin Wall Kimmerer (Also from 2020 but thought about all year. Thanks, Michaelann!)
• Cloud Cuckoo Land by Anthony Doerr

*Please hit “reply” and share your lists of must-read books with us, too!
Favorite Music of 2021

• Rhiannon Giddens, especially At the Purchaser’s Option from Freedom Highway (Thanks, Hilary!)
• The Wellerman by Nathan Evans
• The Tallis Scholars Sing Palestrina
• Underdog by Alicia Keys
• In the Heights soundtrack (We associate it with hiking the Y!)
• Mama Mia soundtrack
• Choker by 21 Pilots
• Anything by Yo-Yo Ma or Pink Martini

StruggleLily continues to struggle with weight, anxiety, civility, self-absorption and a tangle of insecurities surrounding motherhood. She doesn’t use her time efficiently and could be a lot more frugal. Lydia reminds Lily regularly to clean up her language. Lily sees a therapist.Abe loves his job at Qualtrics but struggles with managing his work stress. He also survived an existential crisis that faded at the beginning of the year. His passion is sitting with people in pain and he daydreams of one day joining the clergy. Abe sees a therapist.Basil struggles with barking at strangers, coming when called, and peeing on himself. He probably needs a therapist.

Hope, Love and FaithWe find hope in the everyday joy of our marriage and watching our children develop into individuals who frequently practice principles of introspection, apology and forgiveness. We have loved every experience in our new church and serve as hosts for local church meetings. Because fifty percent of our congregation identifies as LGBTQIA+, we are privileged to have the opportunity to hear their experiences. We are grateful to be part of a community that validates, comforts, and sits with the experiences of the dispossessed. We have faith that exchanging performative action for heartfelt action will help us live lives with more integrity and less regret.
BenedictionMay your holiday season be filled with peace, joy, and an abundance of stillness. If you receive this email, know that we hold you specifically in love. We are grateful you allow us orbit in your life despite our obvious flaws, undoubtedly obnoxious personality defects, and periods of severe neglect. You make our world brighter, fuller, and more hopeful. We are lucky to call you friends and family. 
Peace,
The Daraises

Emily had a birthday last Saturday and so we got together for dinner on Wednesday. We went to Communal and had the most delicious food. And conversation with Emily is always deep and good. Such a fun night. Love you, Emily!

Abe has been stressed with work and craving doughnuts, so he went out and got some for everyone. He also spent a lot of time visiting with our friend, Nick, who has been going through a rough time. He got some doughnuts for Nick too.

Earlier in the day Abe got some time off of work to come with me to see Mary’s class museum about the ancient South American civilizations.

Oh, and we also had a quick play date with Jessi, Henry, and Vika today. I love chatting with Jessi and finally made some popovers that actually popped (even though they stuck to the sides of the pan. Ugh.).

On Monday morning I had Camey and Amy over for brunch. They are in the same branch of teaching at BYU but had never met. It was fun to have a little brunch where they could meet–even if my popovers did burn. Abe sailed in with ingredients from Harmon’s so we could have avocado toast instead. Thank you, Abe!

Then in the afternoon had a play date with the Easton Flakes which we loved, as usual. Clarissa and Hawthorne had a cute little play prepared. It turned out to be Clarissa’s dance routine, which she has worked on since September. She expected Hawthorne to automatically know all of the choreography from ballroom and appeared distressed when things didn’t go according to plan. They were both too cute for words.

These pictures are all backward. They go from latest to earliest in the day but I am too tired to fix that right now.

In the morning Abe took the Subaru in to get the windshield fixed. He took the kids and had them all walk thirty minutes to a park while the car got fixed. (I was home Black Friday shopping.)

In the afternoon we drove to Karin and Jay’s house for dinner. Basil was so happy to be there again! And he had fun playing with Walter and Willow, whom David and Olivia had brought.

After dinner we drove home and Abe took Basil over to the Covingtons’ to play with their dogs while they are out of town.

Abe spent the morning cooking brunch for his mom, Jay, and my mom. I spent the rest of the day cooking for dinner with Tom, Suzanne, Ed and Isabella. I will say, both meals were absolutely delicious. It was the most tasty Thanksgiving I can personally recall. And we loved every minute of visiting with our parents. We quite possibly had the best Thanksgiving ever. My memory is rusty but I struggle to recall a better!

We bought ski passes and Abe needed a picture of Lydia for hers. It’s the only pic I can find for this day.

Clarissa had her first harp lesson! And Anamae stayed for lunch, which was fun.

Abe took the above photos while the older girls and I made a stop in the mall after church. We were originally going to pick up a new pot for Thanksgiving, but that turned into a much, much longer trip…and it seems like Abe and the little kids had fun goofing off while we took our sweet time. Honestly, I felt bad about how long we left the three of them in the car, but they seemed just fine when we got back. Abe, you are my hero! If it had been me, I would have been upset.

Abe also took a picture of one of the hymns we sang today in church. The words are quite beautiful. And wow, did they play this at a clip! It might have been the fastest hymn I’ve ever sung.

I spent the rest of the day planning all of our vacations and weekend trips for 2022. With Black Friday upon us, I felt like I needed to know where we are going so I can get deals if any come up this week. Now we are one hundred percent planned, and I feel tired for us when I look at the calendar.

I think I need to figure out a way to cut down some of the travel so we can have more weekends like the one we just had–full of friends and rhythmic life patterns that we love. At any rate, right now what I most need to do is catch up the blog on this week so I can get to finishing my current book–and take a long walk with Abe and Basil!

Oh–and we recently discovered a song I hunted for in the credits of the movie, Together. It randomly played on our Amazon Music playlist while we were driving home from Salt Lake–and Abe and I both yelped. Ammon has been listening to it on repeat and dancing to it all evening, to my greatest delight.

Here’s its music video!